A drive across town later, Elisa pulled her car up to the driveway of an honest-to-goodness mansion, complete with a stone wall and security gates. Through the gates, you could see what looked more like a park garden than a lawn, with flowers, all kinds of bushes, and a miniature forest of trees. Dominique had to get out of the car to use the intercom by the gate to call someone inside to let her in. ”You don’t need to drive me inside, I’m alright from here.” She told Elisa.

”Oh, okay. I should only be at the station for around two or three hours, want me to just come back here when I’m done then?” Elisa asked.

”No… I need to go into the office for a while. Perhaps, can you meet me there later? When you’re done with your duties?” Dominique asked. Nightstone Unlimited’s main offices were in a skyrise she owned in the center of one of the city’s most up-scale business districts. It’s location would be well known in the business world, but Elisa was not a part of that world (thankfully), so she wondered if she should offer to have her assistant call the station where Elisa worked later with directions?

Elisa smiled a little. ”I’d say I need directions, but an investment banker took a nose dive off the top floor across the street from you last year. I know right where it’s at.” She told her honestly.

”And you handled the case?” Dominique asked curiously, kneeling down a little next to the car window. She remembered that day actually.

”Mm-mm. I was one of the first responders, but I had too many other active cases that week, so it got passed off to another detective.” Elisa told her.

”Oh, I see.” Dominique replied, somehow actually vaguely remembering seeing Elisa from across the street that day. ”You know, now that you mention it, I think I actually did see you there. I was having lunch with a friend.” Fox actually. She’d come to visit, having been in the city visiting her father, Halcyon Renard.

”Hm. Small world.” Elisa told her softly.

”Apparently so…” Dominique replied just as softly, gazing into Elisa’s eyes. The fact that she’d seen Elisa a year ago in passing was reassuring, she supposed – It meant that it was a lot less likely that this charming detective could be anything other than genuine. Not that it really seemed to matter to her heart, which was, with every beat, apparently giving her a very clear message, one that seemed to care very little for things like facts. ”Elisa… I’d like it if you’d come out of the car, just for a minute for me? To say a proper goodbye?” She asked.

It was a Thursday late in April. In Manhattan, the night was mild and balmy with a clear sky above her. The moon was full, and Detective Elisa Maza, NYPD, had a lot on her mind as she drove home that night. She’d just come off investigating a murder in the uptown financial district. It was obvious the victim had been a money launderer, obvious to her at least that he’d also been working for Tony Dracon, a local mob boss who thought he was above the law. Trouble was, so far anyway, he was right about that. Unless she got very lucky, there was no way she’d be able to tie him to this, if he was even the one who called for the hit. For all she knew right now, Dracon might not have been her victim’s only client, or it could even have been a rival of Dracon’s making a move (though that last scenario was a stretch at best). Regardless, whoever pulled the trigger had been a pro, no question. Single gunshot to the back, cameras caught nothing, no witnesses and no evidence except the bullet itself. She’d spent hours trying to find something – sent uniforms out to canvas the area, talked to everyone who she thought might have seen anything. Nothing. The ballistics would be back tomorrow, but that would probably be a dead end without the murder weapon to match it too. In short, she was feeling like she’d wasted an afternoon. She’d became a cop because she came from a family of cops, sure, but she’d also done it because she believed in what she was doing. In things like justice, a civil community, right and wrong, protecting people. The reality was, you had to work hard for those things, and, from her perspective, it seemed like you only ever got them half the time.

All of which meant that she was definitely in the mood to go home, get something to eat (she was in the mood for pancakes for some reason, even though it was past dinner time), then curl up on the couch with her cat and watch TV or read a book for a while. Get a little lost in someone’s imaginary world where the heroes always won in the end, the bad guys always ended up in jail, little boys didn’t lose their dads, and happily ever after was just a clever plot twist away.